MORNING LIGHT: HAPPY 2018

KAYAK SAILING: WEST COAST

HOLA TITAN!

Mike Trask, Titan occidentalis, Fernie, BC

Titanites occidentalis, the second of these giant ammonite fossils recovered at Coal Mountain near Fernie, British Columbia.

The first was about one-third the size and was identified as Lytoceras, a fast-moving nektonic carnivore. This specimen, found in 2004, is significantly larger and relatively rare in North America. With no ruler of an appropriate size, you can see Mike Trask sitting in for scale.

It has been identified as a Titanites occidentalis, (Western Giant), the second known specimen of this extinct fossil species. The first was discovered in 1947 in nearby Coal Creek by a British Columbia Geophysical Society mapping team.

Titanities is an extinct ammonite cephalopod genus within the family Dorsoplanitidae that lived during the upper Tithonian state of the Late Jurassic, some 152 to 145 million years ago.

In the summer of 1947, a field crew was mapping coal outcrops for the BC Geological Survey east of Fernie. One of the students reported finding “a fossil truck tire.” Fair enough. The similarity of size and optics are pretty close to your average Goodridge.

A few years later, GSC Paleontologist Hans Frebold described and named the fossil Titanites occidentalis, after the large Jurassic ammonites from Dorset, England.

The name comes from Greek mythology. Tithonus, as you may recall, was Prince of Troy. He fell in love with Eos, the Greek Goddess of the Dawn. Eos begged Zeus to make her mortal lover immortal. Zeus granted her wish but did not grant Tithonus eternal youth. He did indeed live forever, aging hideously. Ah, Zeus, you old trickster.

It is a clever play on time placement. Dawn being the beginning of the day and the Tithonian being the dawn of the Cretaceous.

Clever Hans!

TUSKED TITANS OF THE ARCTIC: WALRUS

A lazy walrus lounges on an ice floe, its massive, blubbery body shimmering under the low Arctic sun. 

With a deep, rumbling sigh, it shifts its weight and scratches an itch on its side—more out of habit than necessity. Life, for this marine titan, moves at the pace of the tides.

Odobenus rosmarus, the walrus is the only surviving member of the family Odobenidae, a once-diverse group of pinnipeds that includes extinct relatives such as Dusignathus and Pontolis. 

Fossil remains place their lineage back to the late Miocene, around 10–11 million years ago. Early odobenids first appeared in the North Pacific and were more varied than the tusked, bottom-feeding walrus we know today—some had shorter tusks or none at all, and many hunted fish rather than clams.

These ancient walruses belonged to a broader superfamily, the Pinnipedia, which also includes seals and sea lions. Genetic and fossil evidence suggests pinnipeds split from terrestrial carnivores roughly 25–30 million years ago, likely from bear-like ancestors that took to the water during the Oligocene. Odobenids evolved later, perfecting their specialization as suction feeders. 

Their powerful tongues can vacuum soft-bodied mollusks straight from their shells—a skill that defines modern walrus diets.

Today, walruses inhabit the icy Arctic and subarctic waters of the Northern Hemisphere, with two recognized subspecies: the Atlantic walrus, O. r. rosmarus, found in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland, and the Pacific walrus, O. r. divergens, ranging from the Bering Sea to the Chukchi Sea. They prefer shallow continental shelf regions where bivalves abound and haul out on sea ice or rocky shores in vast, noisy colonies.

Despite their ponderous appearance, walruses are powerful swimmers and social creatures with intricate communication and hierarchy systems. Their tusks—elongated canines present in both males and females—serve for dominance displays, hauling out, and defense. 

To Arctic peoples, walruses have long been vital for food, hides, and ivory, woven into traditional lifeways and mythology.

In Inuktitut, the word for walrus is “aiviq” (ᐊᐃᕕᖅ). It’s pronounced roughly eye-vik or ay-vik, depending on the dialect. The plural form is “aiviat” (ᐊᐃᕕᐊᑦ). The walrus, aiviq, holds deep cultural and spiritual importance in Inuit communities, long valued for its meat, ivory, and hide—vital resources for survival in the Arctic.

From Miocene shores to the modern polar ice, the walrus story is one of adaptation and endurance—a lineage that has survived shifting seas and ice ages, still scratching its ancient itch beneath the northern sun.

KOALA: BABY JOEY

Koala, Phasscolarctos cinereus, are truly adorable marsupials native to Australia. These cuddly "teddy bears" are not bears at all. Koalas belong to a group of mammals known as marsupials. 

Fossil remains of Koala-like animals have been found dating back 25 million years. Some of the relatives of modern koalas were much larger, including the Giant Koala, Phascolarctos stirtoni. 

It should likely have been named the Robust Koala, instead of Giant, but this big boy was larger than modern koalas by about a third. Phascolarctos yorkensis, from the Miocene, was twice the size of the modern koalas we know today. Both our modern koalas and their larger relatives co-existed during the Pleistocene, sharing trees and enjoying the tasty vegetation surrounding them.

CAVE BEAR

JELLYFISH: DANCERS OF THE DEEP

This lovely ocean dancer with her long delicate tentacles or lappets and thicker rouched oral arms is a jellyfish. 

Her brethren are playing in the waters of the deep all over the world, from surface waters to our deepest seas — and they are old. They are some of the oldest animals in the fossil record.

Jellyfish and sea jellies are the informal common names given to the medusa-phase or adult phase of certain gelatinous members of the subphylum Medusozoa, a major part of the phylum Cnidaria — more closely related to anemones and corals.

Jellyfish are not fish at all. They evolved millions of years before true fish. The oldest conulariid scyphozoans appeared between 635 and 577 million years ago in the Neoproterozoic of the Lantian Formation, a 150-meter-thick sequence of rocks deposited in southern China. 

Others are found in the youngest Ediacaran rocks of the Tamengo Formation of Brazil, c. 505 mya, through to the Triassic. Cubozoans and hydrozoans appeared in the Cambrian of the Marjum Formation in Utah, USA, c. 540 million years ago.

I have seen all sorts of their brethren growing up on the west coast of Canada. I have seen them in tide pools, washed up on the beach and swam amongst thousands of Moon Jellyfish while scuba diving in the Salish Sea. Their movement in the water is marvellous.  

In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakiutl or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, of the Pacific Northwest, jellyfish are known as ǥaǥisama.

The watercolour ǥaǥisama you see here in dreamy pink and white is but one colour variation. They come in blue, purple, orange, yellow and clear — and are often luminescent. They produce light by the oxidation of a substrate molecule, luciferin, in a reaction catalyzed by a protein, luciferase.

Hiking in BC, both grizzly and black bear sightings are common. Nearly half the world's population, some 25,000 grizzlies, roam the Canadian wilderness.

Both bear families descend from a common ancestor, Ursavus, a bear-dog the size of a raccoon who lived more than 20 million years ago. Seems an implausible lineage given the size of their very large descendents. An average Grizzly weighs in around 800 lbs (363 kg), but a recent find in Alaska tops the charts at 1600 lbs (726 kg). This mighty beast stood 12' 6' high at the shoulder, 14' to the top of his head. It is one of the largest grizzly bears ever recorded.

OREGON: UPTHRUSTED PLATES

MISTY HORNBY ISLAND

THE PYRAMIDS OF GIZA: FOSSILS IN BUILDING STONE

Built to endure the tests of time, the pyramids of Giza stand as some of the oldest and last remaining wonders of the ancient world. 

Rising from the desert sands of Egypt’s Giza Plateau, these monuments were constructed from a masterful blend of limestone, granite, basalt, gypsum mortar, and baked mud bricks—materials quarried both locally and from distant sites along the Nile, including the red granite of Aswan.

Their smooth, once-glimmering exteriors were clad in fine-grained white limestone quarried from Tura, just across the river. This stone was prized in antiquity for its purity and brilliant color, chosen for the facing stones of Egypt’s wealthiest tombs. 

But beyond its beauty lies a story much older than any pharaoh. The Tura limestone is made almost entirely of the fossilized shells of Nummulites—single-celled marine organisms whose remains whisper of Egypt’s ancient seas.

First described by Lamarck in 1801, Nummulites are large foraminifera—amoeba-like protists with calcareous, chambered shells (or “tests”). In life, they resembled tiny white discs, their interiors patterned like concentric rings of a sliced tree or the cross-section of a shell. 

During the early Cenozoic, millions of these creatures thrived in the warm, shallow waters of the Tethys Sea. When they died, their calcium carbonate shells settled to the seafloor, accumulating over millennia. Layer upon layer, they were compacted and cemented by time and pressure into limestone—the same rock later quarried to build the tombs of kings.

Nummulites Foraminifera Fossil

It is astonishing to imagine that the Great Pyramid of Khufu (or Cheops), the largest and oldest of the Giza pyramids, built during Egypt’s Fourth Dynasty around 2560 BCE, is composed largely of the fossilized remains of microscopic life forms that lived some 50 million years earlier. 

The pyramid itself—a monument to human ambition—is, quite literally, built from the remains of ancient seas.

Nummulites are commonly found in Eocene to Miocene marine rocks across southwest Asia and the Mediterranean region, including the fossil-rich Eocene limestones of Egypt. In life, they ranged in size from a mere 1.3 cm (0.5 inches) to an impressive 5 cm (2 inches), and in some Middle Eocene species, up to six inches across—astonishingly large for single-celled organisms. 

Their size reflects an evolutionary adaptation: by expanding their surface area, they enhanced diffusion, allowing for more efficient nutrient exchange across the cell membrane. Many also harbored symbiotic algae, much like modern reef-dwelling foraminifera, further fueling their growth through photosynthesis.

Nummulites Foraminifera Fossil

These fossils, once the inhabitants of the ancient Tethys, later became both material and metaphor for Egyptian civilization. Nummulite shells were sometimes used as coins, and their very name—derived from the Latin nummulus, meaning “little coin”—speaks to this connection between life, economy, and art.

The Great Pyramid’s inner chambers tell a different geological story. The central burial chamber housing the pharaoh’s sarcophagus was constructed from massive blocks of reddish-pink granite transported from Aswan, nearly 900 kilometers upriver. This stone, denser and stronger than limestone, helped support the immense weight of the pyramid’s structure.

In 2013, archaeologists made a discovery that breathed life back into these ancient logistics: a 4,600-year-old papyrus scroll found in a cave some 700 kilometers from Giza. 

The document—addressed to Ankh-haf, half-brother of Pharaoh Khufu—records the journey of a 200-man crew tasked with transporting limestone from the Tura quarries to the Giza Plateau. After loading the stone blocks onto boats, the workers sailed down the Nile, where as many as 100,000 laborers waited to haul the two- to three-ton blocks up earthen ramps toward the construction site. It is a rare and poetic glimpse into one of humanity’s most ambitious building projects—and into the transformation of fossil limestone into enduring architecture.

Even in antiquity, the project stirred strong opinions. Writing centuries later, the Greek historian Herodotus visited Egypt and chronicled Khufu’s reign in his Histories. He described Khufu as a cruel tyrant who closed temples, oppressed his people, and forced them into servitude. According to Herodotus, 100,000 men labored in three-month rotations to quarry and transport the stone, while another decade was spent constructing the grand causeway leading to the pyramid—a feat of engineering almost as impressive as the monument itself.

Modern estimates suggest that 5.5 million tonnes of nummulitic limestone, 8,000 tonnes of granite, and 500,000 tonnes of gypsum mortar were used to complete the Great Pyramid. Whether viewed as an act of divine devotion, human hubris, or cruel genius, its creation also represents one of the largest—and most extraordinary—paleontological extractions in history.

For within its weathered stones, the fossils of an ancient sea still rest, silent witnesses to both deep time and the enduring reach of human imagination.

AUTUMN HARVEST

ALTA LAKE, WHISTLER

RHODESIAN: BEACH DAY

TRILOBITES

Trilobites — in all their many wonderful forms — lived in our ancient oceans for more than 270 million years. The last of their lineage went extinct at the end of the Permian, 252 million years ago.

WEASEL: MUSTELA

Weasels are mammals of the genus Mustela of the family Mustelidae. The genus Mustela includes the least weasels, polecats, stoats, ferrets and mink. Members of this genus are small, active predators, with long and slender bodies and short legs.

CHILKAT ESTUARY

 

WIDGEON ESTUARY

Interested in getting out on the water? Consider an easy day paddle or overnight to Widgeon Estuary. The paddling is easy. You can do the trip via kayak or canoe and stay for the night or do it as a day trip. There are spots all along the river. You can also camp near the base of the trail to the falls.

From Trail Peak:

There is nothing better than to cruise flat water with rippling reflections of big snowy mountains cascading off your bow.

The estuary of Widgeon Creek at the south end of Pitt Lake at Grant Narrows is the perfect place to enjoy this sensation.

If you like quiet peaceful waterways teaming with bird life this is the place to go for the whole estuary is a protected bird sanctuary. After making the 300m crossing of Grant Narrows, expect to see tons of waterfowl and other species from herons to Harlequins that make this area their habitat. You might even see a fleeting glimpse of muskrat or beaver if you are lucky.

If Widgeon Creek is high in the spring or early summer you can paddle quite a distance up under lazy overhanging branches draped in moss and lichen. Huge lush ferns and skunk cabbage line the shoreline in the marshy areas and neat little gravel bars are gathered in the bends of the creek. When you are there you will be amazed that you can be so close to the city yet so far away.

A campsite is located near the west end of the estuary if you want to stay longer. This is probably best to do in the shoulder season when it isn't so busy. If the water is high more secluded sites are located up the river.

CINQUE TERRE: LIGURIAN COASTLINE

Riomaggiore or Rimazuu in the local Ligurian language is a lovely seaside village that can trace its roots to the good taste of Monks who settled here in the early thirteenth century.

Here, great wine is produced and consumed along with a huge variety of seafood, figs, olives, capers and Limoncello in the wee restaurants and bars along the Via Colombo that look out onto the Gulf of Genoa.

Inspired by the praise of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, I had the great pleasure to venture there with my friend, Guylaine. Drawn to the picturesque beauty of the Liguria region, ancient vineyards and the irresistible "photo a moment" scenery, we traveled from village-to-village, all along the Cinque Terre.

Liguria remains one of the wildest parts of the Ligurian littoral east of Genoa. The coastline is home to incredibly complex and exciting geology. It is composed of the Maritime Alps in the west and the Ligurian "nappies," continental margin ophiolities, of the Apennines in the east.

Along the coast, the north-northwest convergence of the Alpine orogeny gives way to the active east-northeast convergence along the Apennines. All of this tasty geology can be observed while walking from town to town from Riomaggiore through Manarola, Corniglia and Vernazza. We stayed in Monterosso al Mare during our visit, meeting up with friends and then visiting them in their home city of Milan. If one is lucky enough to be invited as a guest, the geology of the Via deli'Amore is true to its name sake and well worth the trip.

In my mind's eye, thinking back on the experience, I picture stormy seas, colorful rowboats, sheer cliffs and exotic meals of black squid pasta washed down with Albarola.

STAWAMUS: ENSHROUDED CHIEF

BOWRON BEAUTY

Yellow Lily line pathways and float in the cold, clear lake water. Somewhere I read a suggestion to bring a bathing suit to the park, but at the moment, I cannot imagine lowering anything more than my paddle into these icy waters.

To reach the west side of the paddling route, we must first face several kilometres portaging muddy trails to meet up with the Isaac River and then paddle rapids to grade two.

BONOBO BEBE: PAN PANISCUS

DIPLOGRAPTUS: GRAPTOLITES

Diplograptus floating in Cambrian seas. These colonial animals are known from Middle Cambrian to Lower Carboniferous fossils. The name graptolite comes from the Greek graptos for written and lithos for rock — written on the rock.  And they do look a bit like scratches or calligraphy, but more so like primitive plants. I confess that when I found my first graptolite fossil, I had assumed this was a plant group, then looked them up and low and behold... aquatic sea animals!

TURTLE ISLAND: NORTH AMERICA

Turtle Island 

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/turtle-island

MEGATHERIUM AMERICANUM

In 1788, this magnificent specimen of a Megatherium sloth was sent to the Royal Cabinet of Natural History from the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata.

The megaterios were large terrestrial sloths belonging to the group, Xenarthra. These herbivores inhabited large ares of land on the American continent. Their powerful skeleton enabled them to stand on their hind legs to reach leaves high in the trees, a huge advantage given the calories needed to be consumed each day to maintain their large size.

Avocados were one of the food preferences of our dear Giant ground sloths. They ate then pooped them out, spreading the pits far and wide. The next time you enjoy avocado toast, thank this large beastie. One of his ancestors may have had a hand (or butt) in your meal.

In 1788, Bru assembled the skeleton as you see it here. It is exhibited at the Museo Nacional De Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain, in its original configuration for historic value. If you look closely, you'll see it is not anatomically correct. But all good paleontology is teamwork. Based upon the drawings of Juan Bautista Bru, George Cuvier used this specimen to describe the species for the very first time.

VIEW FROM ON HIGH

A view from on high. The Stawamus Chief, the second largest freestanding piece of granite in the world, has made Squamish one of the top rock climbing destinations in North America.

This majestic peak is said to have been one of the last areas of dry ground during a time of tremendous flooding in the Squamish basin.

Many cultures have a flood myth in their oral history and the Coast Salish people of Squamish are no exception. They tell of a time when all the world save the highest peaks were submerged and only one of their nation survived. Warned in a vision, a warrior of the Squamish nation escaped to safety atop Mount Chuckigh (Mount Garibaldi) as the waters rose.

After the flood, a majestic eagle came to him with a gift of salmon to tell him that the world below was again hospitable and ready for his return. He climbed down the mountain and returned to find his village covered by a layer of silt.

All his people had perished, but the gods gave him another gift, a second survivor of the flood, a beautiful woman who became his wife. For their gift of generosity, they had shown, the couple took the eagle as their chief totem and have honored it through generations of Coast Salish people.

BLUE JAY: KWAS'KWAS

If you live in North American, there is a high probability that you have seen or heard the bird song of the Blue jay, Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758).

Blue Jays are in the family Corvidae — along with crows, ravens, rooks, magpies and jackdaws. They belong to a lineage of birds first seen in the Miocene — 25 million years ago. 

These beautifully plumed, blue, black and white birds can be found across southern Canada down to Florida. The distinctive blue you see in their feathers is a trick of the light. Their pigment, melanin, is actually a rather dull brown. The blue you see is caused by scattering light through modified cells on the surface of the feather as wee barbs.

Blue jays like to dine on nuts, seeds, suet, arthropods and some small vertebrates. 

If you are attempting to lure them to your yard with a bird feeder, they prefer those mounted on trays or posts versus hanging feeders. They will eat most anything you have on offer but sunflower seeds and peanuts are their favourites. 

They have a fondness for acorns and have been credited with helping expand the range of oak trees as the ice melted after the last glacial period.  

Their Binomial name, Cyanocitta cristata means, crested, blue chattering bird. I might have amended that to something less flattering, working in a Latin word or two for shrieks and screams — voce et gemitu or ululo et quiritor. While their plumage is a visual feast, their bird chatter leaves something to be desired. 

In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakiutl or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, of the Pacific Northwest and my family, a Blue Jay is known as kwa̱skwa̱s. 

The Kwak’wala word for blue is dzasa and cry is ḵ̕was'id. For interest, the word for bird song in Kwak'wala is t̕sa̱sḵwana. Both their songs and cries are quite helpful if you are an animal living nearby and concerned about predators. 

BOBBING IN THE BRINE

JEWELS OF THE FORESHORE: TIDEPOOL ANEMONES

Pale green anemones with soft pink tips cling to the foreshore rocks like living jewels, their tentacles swaying gently in the wash of each passing wave. 

At low tide, they look almost floral—tight little bundles waiting for the sea to return. But once submerged, they blossom into delicate, waving crowns.

These are aggregating anemones, Anthopleura elegantissima, some of the most charismatic tide-pool residents on the Pacific coast. 

They’re tough little cnidarians, built to withstand pounding surf, shifting sands, hungry gulls, and long hours exposed to sun and air. 

Their soft colors come from a partnership with symbiotic algae—tiny photosynthetic tenants that lend their host those luminous greens and subtle pink notes.

Despite their beauty, they are fierce predators. Each tentacle is armed with nematocysts—microscopic harpoons—that can stun passing plankton and small crustaceans. 

And while they often occur in dense carpets, they’re not above defending their turf. Neighboring colonies wage slow-motion border skirmishes, using specialized stinging tentacles to push rivals back.

So the next time you spot those mint-and-rose anemones dotting a rock, take a moment to admire their quiet resilience. In the ever-changing rhythm of the tide, they’re tiny, steadfast anchor points—equal parts garden, animal, and battleground.

FOSSILS, BEES AND FIRST NATIONS HISTORY

Welcome to the world of bees. This fuzzy yellow and black striped fellow is a bumblebee in the genus Bombus sp., family Apidae. 

We know him from our gardens where we see them busily lapping up nectar and pollen from flowers with their long hairy tongues.

My Norwegian cousins on my mother's side call them humle. Norway is a wonderful place to be something wild as the wild places have not been disturbed by our hands. Head out for a walk in the wild flowers and the sounds you will hear are the wind and the bees en masse amongst the flowers.   

There are an impressive thirty-five species of bumblebee species that call Norway hjem (home), and one, Bombus consobrinus, boasts the longest tongue that they use to feast solely on Monkshood, genus Aconitum, you may know by the name Wolf's-bane.

In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, and my family on my father's side in the Pacific Northwest, bumblebees are known as ha̱mdzalat̕si — though I wonder if this is actually the word for a honey bee, Apis mellifera, as ha̱mdzat̕si is the word for a beehive.

I have a special fondness for all bees and look for them both in the garden and in First Nation art.

Bumblebees' habit of rolling around in flowers gives us a sense that these industrious insects are also playful. In First Nation art they provide levity — comic relief along with their cousins the mosquitoes and wasps — as First Nation dancers wear masks made to mimic their round faces, big round eyes and pointy stingers. 

A bit of artistic license is taken with their forms as each mask may have up to six stingers. The dancers weave amongst the watchful audience and swoop down to playfully give many of the guests a good, albeit gentle, poke. 

Honey bees actually do a little dance when they get back to the nest with news of an exciting new place to forage — truly they do. Bumblebees do not do a wee bee dance when they come home pleased with themselves from a successful foraging mission, but they do rush around excitedly, running to and fro to share their excitement. They are social learners, so this behaviour can signal those heading out to join them as they return to the perfect patch of wildflowers. 

Bumblebees are quite passive and usually sting in defense of their nest or if they feel threatened. Female bumblebees can sting several times and live on afterwards — unlike honeybees who hold back on their single sting as its barbs hook in once used and their exit shears it off, marking their demise.

They are important buzz pollinators both for our food crops and our wildflowers. Their wings beat at 130 times or more per second, literally shaking the pollen off the flowers with their vibration. 

And they truly are busy bees, spending their days fully focused on their work. Bumblebees collect and carry pollen and nectar back to the nest which may be as much as 25% to 75% of their body weight. 

And they are courteous — as they harvest each flower, they mark them with a particular scent to help others in their group know that the nectar is gone. 

The food they bring back to the nest is eaten to keep the hive healthy but is not used to make honey as each new season's queen bees hibernate over the winter and emerge reinvigorated to seek a new hive each Spring. She will choose a new site, primarily underground depending on the bumblebee species, and then set to work building wax cells for each of her fertilized eggs. 

Bumblebees are quite hardy. The plentiful hairs on their bodies are coated in oils that provide them with natural waterproofing. They can also generate more heat than their smaller, slender honey bee cousins, so they remain productive workers in cooler weather.    

We see the first bumblebees arise in the fossil record 100 million years ago and diversify alongside the earliest flowering plants. Their evolution is an entangled dance with the pollen and varied array of flowers that colour our world. 

We have found many wonderful examples within the fossil record, including a rather famous Eocene fossil bee found by a dear friend and naturalist who has left this Earth, Rene Savenye.

His namesake, H. Savenyei, is a lovely fossil halictine bee from Early Eocene deposits near Quilchena, British Columbia — and the first bee body-fossil known from the Okanagan Highlands — and indeed from Canada. 

It is a fitting homage, as bees symbolize honesty, playfulness and willingness to serve the community in our local First Nation lore and around the world — something Rene did his whole life.